My background is in Java and Python, and I converted to a "native" Mac user several years ago. I use Windows every day and I don't mind the GUI / the utils it provides. In some ways I like the Windows GUIS versus writing init.d scripts, etc.

However, whenever I have to spin up a Visual Studio IDE, it's overwhelming and very complicated. I struggle just to build executables, and there's endless amounts of .NET specific jargon and terminology.

jacques01 wrote:However, whenever I have to spin up a Visual Studio IDE, it's overwhelming and very complicated....even Eclipse seem intuitive.

Eclipse is more intuitive than Visual Studio? I guess it's possible with a Java background...

So, starting up Visual Studio, I count about six clicks to get something that can be compiled and run (New Project -> Visual C# -> Console Application -> Ok, generates an empty project with the boilerplate for a command line application, which compiles and runs just by pressing the "Start" button (F5)).I don't know the equivalent in Eclipse (an IDE I use a lot more often than VS, but like and care about a lot less).

I also find Visual Studio to be a little cluttered and confusing, especially compared to alternatives like SharpDevelop. I think it has more to do with the design of VS than with .NET as a whole. At the same time, the syntax of Java is more confusing to me than the syntax of C#, and I'm an analyst, not a developer, so I'd take the former with a grain of salt.

Both VS and Eclipse are fairly heavyweight IDEs, and if I *had* to pick one as simpler, it'd be VS, though I admit they're close enough for that to be extremely subjective. If you're looking for simple, easy learning curve environments, almost anything else would be lighter.

Personally, I rather like IntelliJ, even though I end up mostly using Eclipse at work, because of standards or whatever.